& & & & & “My problem with
Mike Bloomberg is that he is not saying I’m sorry for targeting Black people.
I’m sorry for treating Black people as second class citizens. I’m sorry for
gaslighting Black people for so long,” said comedian and “Daily Show” host
Trevor Noah, reacting to news last week that the presidential candidate made
racist and inaccurate comments without showing the slightest hint of remorse as
he defended controversial policing tactics he supported while he was mayor of
New York City.&

& & & & & It has been
about a week since Benjamin Dixon, an African-American journalist, released a
video of Bloomberg spewing what many commentators have deemed dangerous and
misguided language during a 2015 appearance at the Aspen Institute in Colorado.

& & & & & “Ninety-five percent of your murders —
murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O.,” Bloomberg told the audience. “You
can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They
are male, minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York. That’s true in
virtually every city.”

& & & & & “One of the
unintended consequences is, people say, ‘Oh my God, you are arresting kids for
marijuana, they’re all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all
the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because
that’s where all the crime is,”

Bloomberg& went on.

& & & & & “The way you get
the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them against the wall and frisk
them,” he said.

& & & & & Critics say
Bloomberg has still not offered an acceptable apology to African Americans,
other minorities or the country as a whole for his hurtful comments.

& & & & & Bloomberg is
also on the record for making similarly offensive racist and classist comments
in the past. The Aspen Institute comments are part of a pattern of questionable
public statements Bloomberg has made.&

& & & & & “I inherited the
police practice of stop-and-frisk, and as part of our effort to stop gun
violence it was overused. By the time I left office, I cut it back by 95
percent, but I should’ve done it faster and sooner,” Bloomberg explained his
approval of stop and frisk without addressing his comments.

& & & & & “I regret that,
and I have apologized — and I have taken responsibility for taking too long to
understand the impact it had on Black and Latino communities,” he said.

& & & & & But critics
knock his defense, pointing out that it does not reasonably explain why he
popped off so casually about the discriminatory policing policy he championed.
It negatively impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of young Black and
Brown men in New York City that were roughed up or processed as criminals over the
12-year period he was mayor.

& & & & & From the looks
of it,& Bloomberg and his campaign may have been anticipating that the
video would surface as his campaign went on, and that his comments would cause
some fallout – especially among Black voters.&

& & & & & The campaign has
spent $3.5 million on an ad buy with the National Newspaper Publishers
Association (NNPA), a network of over 200 Black-owned newspapers.

& & & & & The ads will run
in 129 newspapers in states like California that hold primaries on Super
Tuesday or after.

& & & & & “What it
shows is that the Bloomberg campaign is taking the Black vote seriously and
it’s taking the Black Press seriously,” said Ben Chavis, President and CEO of
NNPA.&

& & & & & Before the video
came to light, he had already assembled a group of high-profile African-American
supporters, including Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, who is national chair
of his campaign;& San Francisco Mayor London Breed; U.S. Congresswoman Lucy
McBath (D-Georgia); U.S.& Congressman Bobby Rush (D-Illinois); Washington,
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser; among others.

& & & & & Tubbs, who is
African American and national co-chair of Bloomberg’s campaign, called
criticisms of the former New York City mayor’s racist Aspen Institute speech
“fake outrage.”

Bloomberg’s comments were “terrible,” Tubbs admits. But he
still went on to justify them, arguing that his candidate’s remarks were
“reflective of the dominant ideology that drove our criminal justice policy in
this country up until this moment.”&

& & & & & “This is a
dangerously disturbing worldview,” tweeted Andrew Gillum, an African-American
Democrat who was a candidate in 2018 for governor of Florida, referring to
Bloomberg’s statement. “Dangerous for me, my two sons and millions more just
like us. Most troubling is that this sounds like a philosophy, not a singular
policy.”

& & & & & On Jan. 24,
Tubbs and the Bloomberg campaign hosted an invite-only breakfast discussion in
Sacramento to share details of the presidential candidate’s plan to invest $70
billion in low-income neighborhoods across the country.&

& & & & & “Bloomberg’s
idea for Black reparations is a drop in the bucket proposal that simply doesn’t
go far enough,” said Malaki Amen, chief executive officer of the California
Urban Partnership, who attended the event.& “Unless his one-time $80B plan
becomes an annual investment to repair the economic harm of stop and frisk,
redlining and America’s crimes against Black people, I’m going to take a pass.”

& & & & & “Received a call
from the Bloomberg campaign last week offering $6,500/mo with benefits for an
advisory role on the campaign,” tweeted Elijah Manley, the youngest person to
run for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives, last week.&

& & & & & Bloomberg is
also standing up his biggest political operation in delegate-rich California,
where he plans to make his real campaign debut.&

& & & & & So far, he has
launched a television ad campaign in the state costing tens of millions of
dollars, has hired 300 full-time campaign staffers, and is deploying an army of
young political organizers for his California ground game, some of them in
those positions earning as much as $6,000 a month, according to the New York
Times.

& & & & & If Bloomberg performs
well in “Super Tuesday” primary in California, he could pick up a sizable share
of the more than 400 delegates in the Golden State alone. That would be a big
push for him after having avoided a potentially disastrous and
campaign-derailing loss in the Democratic primary in South Carolina where the
African American vote is a deciding factor — unlike in California.